War Is Not Healthy: The True Story

Lorriane Schneider (1925-1972), a doctor’s
wife, mother of four and printmaker, created one of the most emotionally
charged posters of the Vietnam War era out of concern that her eldest
son would be drafted into the army. At the time, given Lyndon Johnson
and General William Westmoreland’s increased troop build-up, one need
not be a fortune-teller to predict the inevitable consequence. But when
the poster was issued in 1967, few could foresee that Schneider’s
petition for peace would become the ubiquitous anti-war icon it was then
or is today, almost 40 years later.

In 1967, Schneider entered a small print titled “Primer” to a miniature
print show at Pratt Institute in New York. The only entry criterion was
each submitted work could not exceed four square inches. With the war
uppermost on her mind, Schneider made what she called her own “personal
picket sign,” recalls her daughter Carol Schneider. And because she had
to work in such a tiny format “It had to say something, something
logical, something irrefutable and so true that no one in the world
could say that it was not so,” explained Schneider in a 1972 address
before the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva,
Switzerland. Since it was the "flower power" era, she drew a sunflower
and surrounded it in roughly scrawled lettering the phrase “War is Not
Healthy for Children and Other Living Things.”

“The flower was a very recognizable symbol of hope in the days of despair,” explains Carol in a recent Voice
interview, “and the childlike printing expressed the obvious truth
dancing on the four branches, I think representing the four of us kids.”

When initially conceived, however, Schneider’s image was not intended as
a placard, no less the logo for the movement that grew up around it. It
was not until TV producer Barbara Avedon gathered together 15
middle-class women on February 8, 1967 to discuss ways to protest the
war did Schneider’s image find its true and enduring purpose. As Avedon
noted in a 1974 catalog of Schneider’s work: The women were reluctant to
go the bearded-sandaled youth or wild-eyed radical route, yet they were
chomping at the bit to let the U.S. Congress know how enraged they were
in the face of mounting body bags.

The group decided to send 1,000 “Mother’s Day cards” to Washington as
letters of protest. According to Avedon, the card said “in very ladylike
fashion ‘For my Mother’s Day gift this year I don’t want candy or
flowers. I want an end to killing. We who have given life must be
dedicated to preserving it. Please talk peace.’” This group of ladylike
ladies launched “Another Mother for Peace,” which eventually became the
vanguard of a surging protest movement.

“My mom would have probably been more of an activist if she didn't have
four kids to care for,” adds Carol Schneider. “She really admired some
of the loud and rebellious people of the ‘60s and encouraged us to
listen to them.” Indeed images of civil rights demonstrations and abuse
in the south had long haunted her, and the Schnieder family frequently
hosted the "Freedom Singers" before embarking on the freedom rides. As a
consequence, Carol Schneider recalls that in 1964 “we had ‘kike’ and a
swastika burned on our lawn by our patriotic neighbors. But we weren't
afraid.”

Some poster historians (including myself) have referred to "War is Not
Healthy" as "amateur" by graphic design standards. Despite its ubiquity
and timelessness it still lacked the rage, if not the polish, of other
anti-war posters that were wrought with sardonic and satiric messages,
Schneider's work was like a piece of folk art. Yet Carol insists "She
didn't just scribble it out while waiting in line at the market. I have
never heard of her referred to as an amateur, and feel it is an
inappropriate and somewhat devaluing label. To me, that is like someone
telling my father that he is an 'amateur' because he is an
anesthesiologist, not a surgeon." Although Schneider was not a trained
graphic designer, she was a professional artist and this image, born of
passion and conscience, transcended petty formal definitions. What's
more, rather than the typical protest art, "She saw her image as very
positive and inclusive—after all it is hard to disagree with her words,"
adds Carol Schneider.

The poster further posited a key philosophical idea Schneider proposed
at the Geneva conference: “Man will learn to resolve his inevitable
difference through non-military alternatives. But it is up to us, the
artists, the people who work in media, to prepare the emotional soil for
the last step out of the cave. We can create symbols of the new day and
light the world with our hope and the Neanderthals that attempt to
restrict our freedom of expression, that attempt to frighten us into
silence, that give you only four square inches with which to cry out
your anger–use it.”

"Another Mother for Peace" had such remarkable success in reaching
across political and party lines and swaying popular opinion against the
Vietnam War in large part because of the universal appeal of
Schneider’s words and image. “Women who had never before even considered
expressing their views or protesting wore the necklace and displayed
the bumper sticker with it,” asserts Carol Schneider. “Rural farm wives
and soldiers’ mothers, as well as veterans (there was a bumper sticker
"Another Veteran for Peace") found this statement true to their
feelings, communicating the most basic argument against war.”

Schneider went on to produce several more anti-war images, including
"Sardine Tin General," an intaglio print. The plate was built up using
scraps of metal, run through the press to create an embossment, and
inked. Over the marching tin general with a sword are the words "Juden
Verboten," and under that, "Earth, conceal not the blood shed on thee."
Another startling anti-war print called "Lottery" was comprised of
several segments, each with a scene from WWI, the last war when the
United States used a lottery draft prior to Vietnam. It was constructed
with a knob over the center, under the frame, so it spins. Some were
actually framed in "plotting map" frames, which she got at the army
surplus store. Ironically, but poignantly, plotting maps were used by
the military to plan bombing missions.

Today, this same magnetism continues with Cindy Sheehan, who
single-handedly spawned a peace movement this past summer. “No mother
wishes to lose a child, especially in a battle over ideology, and when
they do, the grief can be both paralyzing and a force for mobilization,”
says Carol Schneider. In anticipation of the September 24 march on
Washington “Another Mother for Peace” (http://www.anothermother.org/)
sent packages to Sheehan. Sheehan is wearing the necklace with
Schneider’s design on her cross-country bus trip to Washington D.C.

Schneider was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died in 1972 at the age
of 47. “I am sure if she lived longer, her work would have continued to
reflect her strong views for peace and social justice,” her daughter
says proudly.

About the Author: Steven Heller, co-chair of the Designer as Author MFA and co-founder of the MFA in Design Criticism at School of Visual Arts, is the author of Merz to Emigre and Beyond: Avant Garde Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century (Phaidon Press), Iron Fists: Branding the Totalitarian State (Phaidon Press) and most recently Design Disasters: Great Designers, Fabulous Failure, and Lessons Learned (Allworth Press). He is also the co-author of New Vintage Type (Thames & Hudson), Becoming a Digital Designer (John Wiley & Co.), Teaching Motion Design (Allworth Press) and more. www.hellerbooks.com